The Cup and the Crown (25 page)
“I was . . . busy, but I’m all right now. Just very tired.”
“Look!” He gestured with his hand to indicate the dry stones beneath them, the bright, starry sky above. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t tell anyone. You have to promise.”
“All right.”
She coughed and stirred, tried to get up, and found she didn’t have the strength.
“Tobias, you’re going to have to help me into the saddle. I don’t think I can do it myself, and I want to get out of this bloody canyon.”
He gathered her up as tenderly as a father carries a sleeping child, then gently set her down beside the mare. When she was steady, he laced his hands and leaned down. She set her boot into them, and he helped her rise till she could swing her leg over the saddle. He guided her feet into the stirrups and collected the reins, placing them in her hands. Then wordlessly he turned and walked back to his mount, knowing in his heart that she had passed out of his universe that night. She was beyond him now, and all the devotion in the world could never bring her back.
SIGRID CAME AGAIN IN THE NIGHT.
If anyone had been watching, they’d have heard Molly talking softly in her sleep, would have noticed the restless movements of head and hands, the play of expressions across her face. But nobody was. They were all asleep.
She woke now and sat up, pulling her blanket around her shoulders and hugging her knees. For a long time she stayed like that, staring into the dying coals, trying to work out her story. When she was ready, she went quietly over to the clearing where they’d built their fire and ran her fingers through the dirt, searching for two smooth stones of equal size, smaller than a walnut but not as round.
Sigrid had been most specific, and Molly had feared she wouldn’t be able to find them. Smooth stones were found in low places, where water ran. But they had camped on high ground. Yet there they were, side by side, half buried in the hard-packed earth at the very edge of the fire ring as though Sigrid had put them there.
She wiped them clean on her skirt. Then she held them as instructed—one in each hand, palms up—and began the Incantation of the Stones.
The words felt foreign on her tongue, and she didn’t understand them. She’d merely learned them by rote, repeating after Sigrid many times. But when the stones grew warm and began to give off light, she knew she’d done it right.
She took a deep breath, shaking off her nervousness. This was a good beginning.
Now she went over to Tobias. Constance, who lay curled in the crook of his arm, woke and looked up; but he slept on, mouth slightly open, breathing heavily. The torrent in the canyon had washed him clean. His hair was tangled, but golden again.
With her right hand she carefully set the first stone on his forehead. With her left she laid the second on his chest, for remembrance and forgetting were matters of heart as well as mind. You cannot change the one without the other.
They glowed softly in the darkness.
Now she set a thumb on each stone and began the Incantation of Forgetfulness. It was longer than the first, and some of the words had to be spoken with an uplift of the voice while others slid down, then up again. She focused all her attention on doing it perfectly. Then she lifted her thumbs, lowered them again, and repeated the incantation a second time.
Tobias’s heart and mind were open now.
“You will forget everything about Harrowsgode,” she whispered, “even its name. You will forget that I flew from a tower and what happened in the canyon tonight.”
Twice more she repeated the Incantation of Forgetfulness, and it was complete. She’d erased a part of his life, robbed him of memories. It was a heavy thing to do, and it frightened her. But she trusted Sigrid, and Sigrid had said it must be done.
Now came the final charm, the Incantation of Remembering.
Molly sang the magical words softly, in a pure, sweet voice. When she came to
aii-kah,
she remembered to press down on the stones, as one does when planting a seed. When she came to the word
chi-ahn-o
, she raised them to the skies, as if calling forth the sun and the rain.
Now she filled the empty spaces in his heart and mind with a new reality, a new memory. Tobias would go through his life believing it had really happened—and she could never tell him otherwise.
She’d never lied to Tobias before. She didn’t like to do it now. But she did.
“We left Faers-Wigan and went to the town where my grandfather was born. It’s to the north and east of Austlind, and it’s called Einarstadt. We met my cousin Jakob there, and he agreed to make us a cup. But it took him several weeks, so we had to wait. Einarstadt didn’t have an inn—it’d burned down the year before—so we lodged with the villagers. I stayed with my cousin. You stayed with Richard Strange. We all became very fond of one another, and they decided to come back with us to Westria. Now we’re on our way home.
“That’s what you will remember.”
She gazed down at Tobias, deep in unguarded sleep, the little dog cradled in the crook of his arm and a small stone glowing on his forehead. He seemed at peace now, and she was glad, for those long days he’d spent in that tomb of a tunnel, alone but for Constance and the rats, digging his way out, fearing for Molly’s safety, knowing he was powerless to help her, had damaged him somehow.
Now those memories were gone, and with them the pain. They were erased forever from his heart and mind. For good measure, just in case, she gave him one final gift.
“You were helpful to everyone, especially to Molly. You said funny things and made her laugh. And the whole time—every single minute, waking or sleeping—you were happy.”
There. It was done.
As she sang the Song of Remembrance again, closing the loop and completing the enchantment, her voice broke; and she felt a wave of unaccountable grief pass over her. She didn’t understand it, but it had something to do with the sweetness of his sleeping face and the surety that nothing would ever be the same again.
She removed the stones from his forehead and his chest. And then, impulsively, she leaned down and kissed his stubbly cheek. He sighed in his sleep and smiled.
As the night drew on, Molly worked the same magic on Winifred, Stephen, and Richard, adjusting the story slightly for each one as needed.
Mayhew she’d left for last. And as with Tobias, she gave him an extra gift: a vivid memory of a day he’d gone out riding in the countryside. He’d been restless hanging around Einarstadt while Jakob made the cup, so he’d gone down to the river and rested there for a while.
Alaric had come into his mind then, and it had struck Mayhew suddenly, with the force of a blow, how very wrong he’d been about him. Yes, he was young and inexperienced in war, but he had a subtle mind and enormous courage. Mayhew might have acted as a father to the boy, supporting and encouraging him, helping him to grow into a great king. Instead, he’d schemed against him, mocking him behind his back and stirring up discontent among the nobles.
Oh, the tragedy of lost opportunity! He would confess it all to the king as soon as he returned to Dethemere. If it cost him his life, so be it.
Just then a fish had leaped out of the water, glittering silver in the afternoon sun—and Lord Mayhew had known, without the whisper of a doubt, that it had been a sign. Alaric would forgive him. They’d make a new beginning.
Molly smiled as she gave him this memory. It would do a powerful lot of good. It hadn’t been part of the plan, and Sigrid might disapprove, but she didn’t think so.
Now she sang the Song of Remembrance one final time. When she’d finished, Mayhew’s enchantment complete, she left him and knelt in the grass, one stone in each hand, palms toward the sky. As she said the Incantation of the Stones in reverse, they grew dull and cold, their magic gone. She put them back where she’d found them and went to sit beside her cousin.
“Jakob,” she whispered into his ear. “Jakob!”
“What’s the matter?” he said, startled.
“Shhh. Don’t wake the others. I have something to tell you.”
He rubbed his face, then sat up and crossed his legs.
“The secret of Harrowsgode is safe now,” she said. “I laid an enchantment on each of them, removing all memory of their time in the city. They think we’ve been in a place called Einarstadt, in the northeast corner of the kingdom. Try to remember the name. That’s where we met you and Richard.”
“They taught you that at Harrowsgode Hall—how to do spells and charms?”
“No. I learned it from Sigrid tonight.”
“Sigrid Morgansson? Of the Council?”
“Yes.”
“Is she hiding behind a bush somewhere?” He smiled as he asked it.
“No. She’s here. And here.” She touched her head and her heart, knowing that he would understand. “She guides me now.”
“You are a true Magus Mästare, then, whether you’re in Harrowsgode or not.”
“I’m more than that, as you shall hear. But listen, Jakob. Wouldn’t you like to see Laila again? See Sanna all grown up? Lorens, too—maybe in garnet robes next time? You might even find it in your heart to forgive your parents. I have.”
“Don’t, Molly! Do you think it was easy for me to walk away from them like that, knowing I could never return?”
“But you can—that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Something happened tonight that changes everything. Jakob, remember in the garden when you said Harrowsgode folk only clasped hands with those they love and trust?”
He nodded.
“You said it was because Harrowsgode folk reveal ourselves when we touch; and for those with the Gift it comes pouring out of us like —”
“—water running downhill.”
“—laying all our secrets bare. Well, tonight I’m like that water, so full of things to tell you that it wells up in me fit to bursting and must come rushing out. I ask you to clasp hands with me tonight, as cousins, with love and trust. And I will show you everything.”
Then she reached out her hands, and Jakob took them.
THEY’D ARRIVED AT THE INN
late that afternoon. Dinner was over now, the landlord had cleared away the dishes, and the others had gone upstairs to bed. Only the cousins had remained behind.
Jakob held a plain wooden box. It had been beside him on the bench all during dinner. Now he handed it nervously to Molly, wishing there’d been time to commission a proper presentation case—something made of ebony, say, carved with initials or a coat of arms.
She looked up at him and smiled.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Open it.”
She took off the lid, handed it to Jakob, then lifted out the package that lay nestled inside.
He’d wrapped it in layer after layer of silk, each of a different color, so that first there was emerald green, then scarlet, then saffron, then robin’s-egg blue. Molly admired each one—so lovely—but really, he needn’t have gone to all that trouble!
The final layer of silk—cloud white—dropped into her lap, and at last she held it in her hands: the Loving Cup. And it was a marvel.
The base, bold and masculine, was gilded and embellished with translucent enamels, pictures of delicate flowers and mythical beasts, framed in silver filigree. But the bowl of the cup was disarmingly simple, made of beaten silver. So perfect was its shape and size, so glorious its luster, that the base with all its knobs, and cartouches, and ornate decorations seemed to be reaching up in praise of the vessel itself, which was too perfect to require any ornament at all.
Molly said not a word, just laid the cup in her lap and gazed thoughtfully at the fire. Jakob felt the waves of disappointment rolling off of her.
“It’s not right, is it? There’s something wrong.”
Still she was silent.
“I tempered the metal with my blood, just as William did.”
“It’s beautiful, Jakob,” she finally said. “A masterpiece. A fitting gift for the greatest princess in the world.”
“But . . .”
“That’s all it is. A sip from this cup will not join two people together for life.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Jakob—is this the cup you saw in your vision?”
“Yes. To the last detail.”
“The inside of the bowl was silver, not gold?”
“Absolutely. That isn’t what you saw?”
“No. In my vision, it was gilded. It glowed like the very sun.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“Nor do I, but it has to mean something. You were supposed to make this cup, just as you saw it. And I was meant to give Alaric . . . a different cup. . . .”
“No,” he said, “the same cup. It just—”
“—isn’t finished!”
“Yes. I was meant to do what only a silversmith can. And I did. I made the cup that was shown to me in my vision. But
you
saw the cup in its final form. Molly, we were meant to finish it together.”
“But how?”
“You’ll see,” he said.
THEY SAT SIDE BY SIDE
at a long worktable, each wearing a leather apron. They were in a famous goldsmith’s workshop that had served the royal house of Westria for many generations. But on this particular day the shop was quiet, the apprentices and journeymen off for the day and the doors shut to customers. Molly and Jakob were alone there except for the master goldsmith, who sat politely at the far end of the table and never left off watching them. They’d paid him handsomely for the use of his shop; but he didn’t know them, and he had a fortune in jewels and precious metals to protect.
“In this bowl,” Jakob was explaining to Molly, “we have powdered gold. And in this one we have mercury.”
“It looks like liquid silver.”
“Yes. It’s called ‘quicksilver’ for that very reason. Now in a moment I’ll heat them both in the furnace. The gold will melt into a liquid, and the mercury will become thinner and more watery. Then I’ll mix them together—six parts of mercury to one part of gold.”